Confessional artwork: Tracey Emin’s experiences of love

By Gabrielle Stein

Tracey Emin crashed onto the British art scene as part of the YBA’s in the nineties and has since become known as one of the most prolific contemporary artists of our time. Initially, Emin raised eyebrows and frustrated viewers with her raw, unfiltered artworks that were deemed, at the time, not artworks at all. Of particular interest to Emin over the course of her career has been confessional work. The artist draws upon her experiences of love and intimacy, constantly blurring the line between the private and the public. Emin captures the fragility of love, whether romantic, familial or platonic, and conveys the power of its lingering presence.

Emin presents the vulnerability of love through the infamous sculpture My Bed, which caused quite the uproar following its creation in 1998. The work is, just as the title reflects, Emin’s bed. After a painful breakup, the artist spiralled into a deep depression and didn’t leave her room or this bed for four days. The result: cigarettes, empty bottles, blood-stained underwear and birth control pills. A candid portrayal of the despairing effects of lost love. Viewers and critics were uncertain about the piece, refusing to accept that it was, in fact, an artwork. However, Emin’s meticulous portrayal of her personal life in My Bed is undeniably powerful. Each object reveals a new detail about the squalor in which the artist confined herself for days following heartbreak. It is this raw vulnerability that sees the piece remain so successful now, over 25 years after its creation.

Another of Emin’s revered confessional pieces is Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995, otherwise known as ‘The Tent’. To create this installation piece, Emin carefully appliqued the names of all 102 people that she had ever slept with onto the inside of a tent. Despite the overtly sexual connotations of the title, to have your name written you need only to have shared a bed with the artist. The list included family members and close friends, even Emin’s grandma: ‘I used to lay in her bed and hold her hand’ says Emin. ‘We used to listen to the radio together and nod off to sleep. You don’t do that with someone you don’t love and don’t care about’. The sense of love here is compelling, dismissing any claims that this artwork is merely some kind of absurd sexual confession. The impact of the piece spans further, as viewers are encouraged to enter the tent themselves and reflect on the intense, fragile and lingering loves of their own lives.  

Emin continues to express raw love and emotion through her neon pieces, each scrawled in her own messy handwriting and carrying an unfiltered message. These glowing public statements are striking, particularly the 2018 piece: I Want My Time With You. This 20-metre-long artwork adorns the roof of St Pancras train station in London. The heartfelt, almost pleading statement was conjured, as expected, from the artist’s personal experience: ‘I cannot think of anything more romantic’, says Emin, ‘than being met by someone I love at a train station’. The placement of the piece in an international travel hub seems fitting. Busy travellers who stride absently from A to B are forced to stop, look up and think about the importance of time with their loved ones. Emin succeeds in disrupting the mundane routines of urban life, with a declaration of love that pierces through the daily repetition and reminds us all that time is increasingly precious.

Finally: The Mother (2022). A nine-metre-high sculpture made entirely out of bronze, weighing an immense 18.2 tonnes and overlooking the Oslo waterfront. The piece depicts a woman with her back towards us, kneeling over an invisible baby. We are urged to think of our own mothers, of the strength of women giving birth and of the all-consuming love felt by a mother for her child. When asked about her intentions with the sculpture, Emin answered: ‘I hope we all see the person that brought us into the world’. It certainly feels charged with a burning sense of love. How can you look at this immense bronze depiction of mother-child affection and not be reminded of your own experience? This artwork is a universal statement of love.

Emin’s confessional pieces offer us an unfiltered insight into her experiences of love: from the despair of heartbreak to family’s unwavering devotion. But what can we learn from these experiences? We learn that love is messy, love is painful, and love is deeply human.

Image credit: Colleen Rowe Harvey / Art UK